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While the professor is a darling of Dems, Elizabeth Warren has become the scourge of Republicans.
AP Photo

Like $4 trillion. That’s the amount the Treasury Department, Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. have spent on financial stability efforts so far, according to the panel’s most recent report.

And that huge number may not address some smaller — but no less worrisome — statistics, like the 29.1 percent that national housing prices have fallen since their peak in the second quarter of 2006, according to the report.

Warren, who proudly calls herself an “outsider’s outsider,” is comfortable announcing those kinds of very uncomfortable figures, even if that means taking some political punches.

“I’ve never held a government job, and I’m not looking for a government job after this,” she said. “I’m not out there trying to go and find my next landing spot.”

She grew up in Oklahoma, the daughter of Depression-era, money-conscious parents. She won a debate scholarship to George Washington University and later went to Rutgers Law School in New Jersey. Warren eventually got a post at Harvard, where she slowly branched out from writing legal papers to producing mass-market books detailing the financial struggles of the middle class.

In 2003, she coauthored the book “The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke” with her daughter, a former McKinsey consultant. The book got significant media attention and built her reputation as an advocate for middle-class families and consumers. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both consulted with Warren during the presidential campaign.

But Warren was still shocked when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid asked her to chair the TARP panel.

“I did say to him, ‘Senator, are you sure you want me?’” she said. “I confess, I was really surprised. I don’t do Washington stuff much.”

Since then, Democrats have jumped on an idea that Warren first proposed two years ago, introducing legislation that would create a Financial Product Safety Commission charged with overseeing new consumer lending and investment products. Warren argues that a commission modeled after the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which oversees the security of toys and small appliances, would have kept the subprime mortgages that sparked the current recession off the market in the first place.

“It is impossible to buy a toaster that has a one-in-five chance of bursting into flames and burning down your house,” Warren wrote in Harvard Magazine last May. “But it is possible to refinance your home with a mortgage that has the same one-in-five chance of putting your family out on the street — and the mortgage won’t even carry a disclosure of that fact.”

President Obama backed the proposal on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” last month, using the toaster analogy to explain the idea.

The commission idea is opposed by conservatives and financial services firms, who argue it would prohibit innovation and impose unnecessary additional regulations on financial services companies.

“We wouldn’t be able to invest in anything the commission didn’t decide was absolutely safe for us,” said Peter Wallison, co-director of the American Enterprise Institute’s program on financial policy studies. “There wouldn’t be any innovation and there wouldn’t be any new ideas.”

Whether or not the commission is created, one thing is clear: Warren doesn’t plan on missing out on her moment in history.

“The decisions that are made in the next six months or so are likely to set the economic course of this country for the next 50 years,” she said. “That’s what happened coming out of the Great Depression, and I think that will happen now.”

Yippeee...anyone surprised that someone else in the Obama administration "draws fire from the right?"

LOL.

The party of "greed," "no," "tea-bagging," "sabotage," and "ain't got no plan so we'll whine, complain, drag our feet, and generally carry on like obnoxious children" can only sit and wait to pounce on anything and anyone who is part of Team Obama. And Warren is *OMG* different. ha!

Let Warren and the commission do their job, THEN bring on the criticism. She's

Another conservative prone to slam and say "NO" .. but without a clue about how Bush and the "elite" ripped us all off. Too bad these people don't invest ANY braincells into understanding what went on for eight years.

Of course, HalABurton may be one of the top 1% who got his tax-gift-cut and has taken the money and run. Now all he has to do is name-calling to keep the rednecks angered at the new administration.

Warren is about the only person in this administration willing to speak the truth about this finanacial bailout. Kill the messenger is the modus operandi in politics-then when the **** hits the fan , they say "Oh, how could we have known?" Well, the truth is these banks are insolvent and and the law states they should have been taken over and had their assests sold off (this law passed during the Savings and Loan debacle, another lesson NOT learned). Think of all the job creation that could have taken place with these trillions, the healthcare provided, shoring up SS--Roosevelt understood-jobs first, Wall Street second. The government can operate as it's own bank. We don't need citibank or the others. So tell me, how's this bailout working for you, so far? Credit card rates increased? Check. Job losses continue unabated. Check. Foreclosures up. Check. Retirement portfolio surfing the basement. Check. People killing each other right and left due to stress and depression. Check. When will America wake up and see the immoral scam being perpetrated upon us? I hope Warren keeps telling the people the truth for as long as she has breath!

She is a very competent woman, and has put heat on both the Bush and Obama administrations. The fact that the special interests that helped "innovate" the credit default swaps, which brought on this mess, are opposing her only makes me like her proposals more.

The Republicans are intent on stopping serious regulation at all costs. The magicians of Wall Street must be allowed to continue their slight of hand and smoke and mirrors. Nothing real is produced on Wall Street, only false dreams which must be sold to placate the masses and keep the top 2% of America in charge.

The party of TEA BAGS and nothing else to plan. Bush is in China to ask for payment during his mess up in office. Paulling around with the communist China. What a crap! He has a good legacy for decades.

Most of you know by now that the Senate version (at least) of the "stimulus" bill includes provisions for extensive rationing of health care for senior citizens. The author of this part of the bill, former senator and tax evader, Tom Daschle was credited today by Bloomberg with the following statement.

Bloomberg: "Daschle says health-care reform "will not be pain free. "Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them."

If this does not sufficiently raise your ire, just remember that Senators and Congressmen have their own healthcare plan that is first dollar or very low co-pay which they are guaranteed the remainder of their lives and are not subject to this new law if it passes.

Will Politico pick up on this or are they also included in the Congressional Slicksters Plan?

How come Congress always exempts themselves from OUR laws?

Please help us Politico - CNN or MSNBC won't

We could have a weekly tea party and still miss out on Congressional trickery.